PhD Candidate in Human Performance and Situational Awareness in Multi-UxV Remote Operations

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Video: https://youtu.be/Xt-yHCN5QS0About the project

Norway is facing an increasingly complex maritime security environment. Effective responses to threats against coastal and underwater infrastructure are becoming critically dependent on unmanned vehicles (UxV) — UAVs, USVs, and UUVs — operated from Remote Operation Centers (ROC). A key knowledge gap is our limited understanding of what is required for the humans operating these systems to function reliably under defence and preparedness pressure.

Research consistently shows that human cognitive capacity is the binding constraint in multi-vehicle remote operations. Managing two to four UxV systems simultaneously pushes operators toward and beyond their cognitive limits, with consequences for situational awareness, decision quality, and authority sharing. Yet the human factors of ROC-based multi-UxV supervision remain largely unstudied in maritime contexts.

NTNU Ålesund is developing state-of-the-art Remote Operation Center infrastructure through the MIND & SHELL project, combining high-fidelity simulation with full-scale testing at Fjordlab — a unique outdoor maritime test environment with multi-sensor infrastructure including hydrophones, land-based radars, oceanographic sensors, and an UxV fleet. This infrastructure provides an exceptional basis for empirical research on ROC operator performance.

Are you motivated to take a step towards a doctorate and open up exciting career opportunities? As a PhD Candidate with us, you will work to achieve your doctorate, and at the same time gain valuable experience that qualifies you for a further career in higher education and research, in and outside academia.

Your immediate leader will be the Head of Department.

About the position

The PhD candidate will investigate how ROC operators construct situational awareness — understood as skilled sensework across cognitive, strategic, and organisational axes — when managing multiple UxV systems simultaneously in defence and preparedness scenarios. The research will examine how cognitive load, autonomy level, authority sharing, and interface design affect decision quality as vehicle count and scenario complexity increase. A second and complementary focus is the extent to which sustained screen-based multi-UxV supervision suppresses operators' awareness of their immediate physical environment — a phenomenon with

direct implications for ROC survivability in contested settings where the operating crew must remain alert to threats beyond the screen.

The candidate will design and execute simulator-based experiments and full-scale field studies at Fjordlab, using established human factors methods such as SAGAT, NASA-TLX, and eye-tracking. The research will draw on and extend Endsley's situational awareness model, Haavik's sensework framework, and Parasuraman's taxonomy of automation, applying these to the emerging domain of maritime ROC operations.

The candidate will work in a multidisciplinary research environment at NTNU Ålesund, and collaborating closely with another PhD candidate — who develops the physical design and for deployable, survivable ROC units — as well as defence and preparedness stakeholders and technology partners. Findings are expected to contribute to design principles for ROC interfaces, operational guidelines for multi-UxV supervision, and serve as a foundation for future European-scale research initiatives. The candidate must be prepared for changes to your work duties after employment.

Duties of the position

• Complete the doctoral education until obtaining a doctorate
• Carry out research of good quality within the framework described above
• Academic publications and popular science dissemination
• Participate in research group activities
• Participate in international activities such as conferences and/or research stays at foreign educational institutions

Be prepared for changes to your work duties after employment.

Required selection criteria

• You must have a relevant Master's degree in maritime operations, the maritime industry, aviation, defence operations, or similar high-stakes operational environments or equivalent. Your education must correspond to a five-year Norwegian course, where 120 credits have been obtained at master's level. Master students can apply, but the master's degree must be obtained and documented before starting the position and no later than 1st of October 2026.
• You must have a strong academic background from your previous studies and have an average grade from your Master's degree study, or equivalent education, which is equal to B or better compared to NTNU's grading scale. If you do not have letter grades from previous studies, you must have an equally good academic foundation. If you have a weaker grade background, you maybe considered if you can document that you are particularly suitable for a PhD education.
• You must meet the requirements for admission to the faculty's Doctoral Programme Engineering
• You must have high proficiency in both written and oral English

PLEASE NOTE: For detailed information about what the application must contain, see paragraph “About the application”.

The appointment is to be made in accordance with NTNUs guidelines for recruitment positions for general criteria for the position.

Preferred selection criteria

• You hold a master's degree in human factors and ergonomics, maritime studies, cognitive science, organizational studies, or other related fields with relevance to the research challenges described
• You have experience with experimental methods, both quantitative and qualitative approaches to human performance evaluation (and team collaboration)
• You have experience with field work / etnographic approaches
• Good oral and written presentation skills in Norwegian or another Scandinavian language

Personal characteristics

To complete a doctoral degree (PhD), it is important that you are able to:

• Work independently
• Work in a structured way, set goals and make plans to achieve them
• Engage across disciplines and with operational audiences
• Look at the real-world relevance of research, not only academic contribution
• Combine theoretical rigour with pragmatism
• Get involved and contribute constructively with feedback
• Work constructively under pressure or in the face of adversity
• Show curiosity and a strong motivation for the subject
• Analyze data, assess different perspectives and draw well-founded conclusions
• Be flexible and open to adjusting the plan for the project as needed

Emphasis will be placed on personal qualities.

We offer

• An exciting job with an important mission in society
• Developing tasks in a strong and international professional environment
• Open and inclusive working environment with committed colleagues

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